Homefires
by Suryallee
Summary: What if Harper was accidentally thrown back in time? I often wondered about the future after the last season. H/T Slash / Yaoi
1. Chapter 1

Title: Homefires

Author: Suryallee

Pairing: Harper/Tyr

Rating: PG13 to NC-17 The latter will only be posted fully out written on AFFN and adult sides.

Spoilers: many

Archive: if someone wants to, sure^^

Feedback: makes my day, honestly!

Website: none

Disclaimer: All characters belong to Tribune Entertainment. No copyright infringement or use intended. I merely wrote this for my and my readers entertainment only.

Warnings: This story contains cussing and stuff and slash, so if this disturbs you, don't read on.

Notes: see under this part and read them!

Beta: none so far but wanted.

**Authoress notes, please read! **

**First off, I am native German! Even with my English being better now as formals, I still need a beta for this. Please be kind when reading this and keep in mind that I am often not as good as I wish it to be. **

**And to the flame happy people, go ahead and try your worst, I will simply ignore you and remove any attempt on my person and fiction. If I get some reviews that is, I do not really believe that someone is still reading or much writing Andromeda fictions in these last years. For that I am not posting this. **

**This fiklet lay now since nearly 8 years in my computers. 2002 I came in contact with Andromeda and fell in love with Harper and the others of this wonderful TV series. My writing skills however, they were very bad at that time and I first wrote this in German actually. I never brought up enough courage to re-write it or to translate it until now. **

**I am aware that the fandom is nearly dead but still I want it published. And if only to put an old ghost to rest, so to speak. Call it my little tribute to a wonderful Series and their amazing actors, I do not care. I still love them all.**

**Suryallee **

**Chapter one, the end of a beginning and the beginning of an end. **

If someone had told Harper in the past that he one day would raise a Nietzschean child he would have laughed his ass off and then killed the fool.

If someone, in the past, would have ever told him that Harper would get attached to said Nietzschean Child, he would have snorted and go on with his life; certain that that person was hallucinating.

If someone ever before in his life had told him in the past, that he once would love said child enough to kill for it, he would have shoot the teller and then himself.

And if, just if someone in the past had told Seamus that he would one day raise the beginning of the biggest nightmare of his life, he would have never believed it.

But here he was, holding a tiny maybe two years old child, complete with pre spurs on each tiny arm that gurgled happily up at him. Rubbing his weary face and trying to understand how in the name of the Divine he had ended up in this alien situation in the first place. He was sitting against the bulky door to the gangway with said child in one arm and armed with a force lance in the other, that's back of it he currently used to rub his weary eyes with.

Behind them both, someone else was pounding against said door and spit curses at Harper that did upset the little Nietzschian in his lap. Bouncing the tiny child a little the protests subsided quickly again. Soon the baby only had adoring eyes for Harper again, the only father figure he had ever known in his short life. Laughing and gurgling in happiness what made Harper give the little twit a tired smile and bounce it a little more.

"Shut the fuck up, Paul! You're disturbing him and besides, no, I am so not going to give him over to you to make another of your *inventions* on his poor DNA! Basta! Finis! End of story!" Behind him the male voice spit out more curses at Harper before a loud sound told Harper that the mad genetic engineer had sat down on the other side of the door.

"For the record; whose son was Drago again? MINE! So go and bite dust, Harper!"

"Oh, really? He is your son? Wasn't aware of that. Nope, not really and fuck you too, Pauly, as far as I remember it, Beka had a bit to do with that too, although unwillingly and what is not to understand on the word, NO you madcap?"

"It's official; I Hate You! Should have killed you on Sefra when I had the chance, damn it!"

Harper grinned and sniggered madly at the outburst of Paul Musaveni. It was a too good opportunity to miss out. And the Universe might know; he hadn't had a good laugh in literally ages past! The laughs died down shortly after.

"Fine! Have it your way; Daddy Harper. But he will need them and you will not stop me from doing them!" With that, sounds of someone standing up and stomping away told Seamus that he had won this round…for now. It was bad enough already that the asshole had taken Drago's DNA to create more of them. Harper felt like an old man when he stood and slowly dragged his tired body deeper into the orbital station that was his temporally home now since a year by accident.

Hitting the cushions on his bed together with a squealing infant progenitor of a new race, the former engineer of the Andromeda ascendant tried to find some rest.

How in the name of the Divine had he ended up in this first class chaos anyways?

Well, if Harper was honest with himself here, he was the only one to blame. It was his idea to build the machine again that he had used to send Hunt back in time to use it to get back on earth before the Dragan's had destroyed it to prevent it maybe or at least; to die with his friends. Of course, the universe had other plans with him…as usual.

He had never forgotten how cold in his opinion the others had taken the destruction of his home planet. Honestly! He had only wanted to go back to there in time; no one would have missed him anyways, now that the others all got whatever they had wanted. Only he had been the sore loser in the end. Harper was certain; no one would miss him in the future. All were too busy with taking up new or old life's again. He wondered if they even knew what he had lost.

Why did the Universe hate him so?

Harper wasn't certain, only that it loved ironies as it seems. And to throw them on his sorry person from the looks of it! Sighting he stopped yet another attempt of little menace, alternatively called Drago, to wiggle himself out of his iron hold to go on a little adventure snoop in Seamus rooms.

How could one single little child get in so much mischief anyways? Lately he had managed to fry the air systems by accidently peeing on the generator…Harper shook his head and suppressed a laugh.

Harper blamed the famous Valentine's genes for that. Actually he was pretty damn certain of it, not that someone cared a shit anyways. "No Drago, that is bad for your tummy, little twit. You will only get a stomach hurt again." He took the old shoe of him out of the pouting little child's hands and replaced it with a self backed cookie that he had stored for such emergencies in his rooms in masses. Over the last year he had become quite good in backing and cocking, courtesy of little Drago who was always hungry and chewed otherwise on everything in reach, like cables and such. Not even Harpers tools where safe of Drago's appetite and so he had taken on it to secure them far above the reach of the inventive child. Did all Nitsch children eat that much? Or was it only Drago? He wasn't sure of that.

Munching happily around on the sweet the child in question gave him no insight on that matter. He simply grinned with his now smeared mouth up at his Harper.

Stroking the little, blond head he smiled fondly down at Beka's son.

She would never see him, hold him or even know Drago. The child had no mother in a literally meaning of the words, the woman who had born him wasn't his mother and Paul had taken Drago from her soon after. She had been dark skinned like Tyr who Seamus now often missed more badly if that was even possible. Shaking his head the engineer tried to focus on his current dilemma again. Namely; Paul, Drago's father, or whatever he called himself.

Beka would have kicked Paul in the nuts already, Harper was certain.

Her reluctance to become a mother in all respect, she would have taken the boy from Paul already a long time ago. Since she couldn't do so, Seamus had taken over that task for her. Beka Valentine, the only person who had ever given a shit about Harper. He felt he owned it to his friend that hopefully lived happily in the future. He had tried to repair the machine to get back into his own time, several times actually, nothing had worked.

As long no one reactivated it in his hidden lab in the future, he was stuck here.

A good thing was, he didn't seem to age, if even a little his body had seemingly taken a stop in that department. The bad side was he was stuck with Paul and his goons on the orbital station too, oh joy.

Catching the little hellion that was now taking up most of his time, he mused that it wasn't that bad though. At least Paul was entertaining him on daily basis with his stupidity and the kiddo was simply too cute for words. Of course, sometimes the dark thoughts took over in his brain. That this child was the first of the many who would kill or hurt his family, his friends and himself in the fare away future to in the end destroy his home planet.

Often he had played with around the, what ifs in his head. Only to forget them all soon again: He wasn't a murderer of children.

Hey, maybe he was a killer if needed and when driven to it but never Harper would voluntary slay a child, least that of Beka. He would not fall that low.

The next year went by.

And then another one came and went. Harper began to lose count on the years in the flow of time. Before his eyes, the race that one day would dominate a good part of the known universe begun to grow in Paul's Lab's and from there on the station and the planet below. All the time he was still stuck here, he devoted his time to the young boy in his care, much to Paul's anger. He never let Drago out of his sight or Paul, fill his little head with too much nonsense. Paul's goons soon learned, after some well placed accidents or not so subtle placed direct fights with Harper, to never touch the boy again.

That often led to ugly fights between Paul and Harper.

Fights, that Drago watched silent like a sentinel from the sidelines. With gleaming eyes and open ears that never missed a word or move on both combatants. Silently storing all away in his tiny head for later musings and use. One day the now twelve years old asked Harper the dreaded question, which Harper had always known it would come one day. He just didn't anticipated the way the bright boy asked it finally.

"Why did you never kill me, Harper? If I had been you, I would have. All of what happened to you in the future would never happen." The blue eyes looked calmly into Harpers when he asked his adopted father figure this. Like all Nietzschean children Harper knew about, Drago had grown like a weed in the last years. He resembled now more a fifteen years old in body and mind as a twelve years old. They grew so freaking fast!

Sputtering for a moment, Harper tried to calm himself before he gave the boy an answer.

Not looking up and finishing the few sandwiches he was making he said the first thing that came to his mind.

"I love you too much and besides, it would not change a thing, Drago. The future is the future and now is now." Turning to the youth he took in the lanky figure that soon would grow out into the frame of a tall and beautiful man. He just knew that Beka's boy would break a mountain of hearts in the future, the looks alone would make certain of that. He again blamed Beka for that, not that Paul was bad looking but the boy favored his mother's looks ways too much in Harper's view.

"Did I ever tell you how proud you make me?" The boy shook his head with a laugh. "Nearly every day in the past ten years but that isn't what you're talking about, or?" Harper shook his head with a ironic grin. As usual, Drago caught on too fast. "No, but is true none the less. Look, no one of us is responsible for whatever happens the future. No matter what your people will do in the coming ages: it will not be your fault! If anything, they will lose their way. Maybe they will find it back, I honestly don't know, Drago. But of one thing I am deadly certain; if they don't, they will lose what makes them Nietzschian. And it will not be your problem, it will be theirs…do you understand what I am trying to tell you?"

The youth slowly nodded.

"Yes. Can we go down on the surface to fish a little? We haven't done that in a long while…Father." The last word made Harper widening his eyes comically at the retreading back of the half grown youngster who already took their rods out of the bunk where Harper stored them on the station. "What did you just… call me?" Drago turned around evenly and gave Harper a soft and for him, rare smile.

"I called you Father."

Turning, the lanky frame vanished inside the hallway to Harper's rooms. "Coming? We don't have all day and the best fish's bite at dawn; you taught me that, forgotten?" Harper made a lopsided grin, and then the still slightly shocked human trotted after the youngster to the ship hangar to get down on the planet under the station to go fishing with him. Grapping the sandwiches and a few bottles of water on his way out Harper laughed.

And when the two came back much later, Seamus went on with his teachings of the boy in his care. About mathematics and whatever else he knew about and thought that it would benefit Drago in his future. All the while telling himself that he did it for Beka's sake only and not once Harper let himself any room for doubt on that in his mind. What he felt inside of his soul, well that was another matter entirely and was never spoken of.

Even as said youth did not relent in calling him father from that day on, whatever Harper did to tell him otherwise.

He was also there when Drago became the officially leader of his people with seventeen.

Harper was actually nearly bursting of pride in that moment. The boy had exactly turned out how he had mused in the past. Cunning, wise for his years and deadly beautiful.

Well, as much that control freak of his genetically father let him be it. Paul was getting more and more unstable lately. He also annoyed the hell out of Harper and Drago too. In the last two years, the original population of human's who had come with Paul here to build this race had dwindled rapidly. Uncommon accidents, sudden illnesses and even unsolved murders had taken a toll on them. Only a few of the well liked of their children had survived that trials. And those few were guarded by their families with a vicious vigor that surprised even Seamus. For the first time in his life he began to become an understanding of the unstoppable magnetism that was a Nietzschian's family for a Nietzschianer. They would literally do everything for their families or what they considered to be it. Not caring the consequences for themselves.

It made him muse about some events in the future and what he could have learned out of them if he had understood them in time. Namely; Tyr and his reactions to his son and people and the lengths he took in the end to ensure their safety.

Harper had tried to find out who was behind those deaths but even he failed to get it out and into the open. All he could tell definitely was that the leads all went back to Paul Musaveni in the end. It was never enough to put an actual blame on the man but enough still to make Harper painfully clear that he better checked whatever he consumed, or did plan to do, twice if necessary. He never went out of the town build on the planet side where he now lived in on Drago's demand, without taking precautions.

Or, without the, to him now constantly assigned two guards. Courtesy to Drago who made no secret out of the fact that he would confine him personally to his rooms and would throw the key into the big ocean outside their residence if he ever caught him without the two in public or else. What was annoying Harper to no end since he did know that Drago had a point here that he couldn't outwit, sadly.

The two sixteen years old that accompanied him now everywhere did profitable from that duty in many ways. He often taught the two those things that their parents and Paul's school teachings had lacked to do, like how to sneak their way around orders and still getting away for example.

It wasn't a wonder to Drago that many applied to guard Harper.

He knew first hand of what his adopted father was capable off. And his people would profitable from Harpers fast knowledge and craftiness in many ways for years to come. More than often he made openly clear that he did not want to lose Harper in any way or form. Drago went even so far to destroy one of the devices Seamus still did build in hope to get back to his time one day. Not that Harper really wanted to do that now in the last years. It still ended in a bad argument between the two that took three months to cool down.

Somehow, somehow Harper had become too attached to this new life and Drago too and he did know it.

He hid away the original machine, even from Drago after that incident and said nothing when the young Nietzschian leader systematically destroyed one copy of it after the other that he could find in the following months. All had…unfortunate accidents; Harper wisely left it at that and said no more about returning into his originally timeline after that.

He understood Drago much better as he wanted it. The young man was scared and Harper was one of the few constants in his short life. If he was honest to himself, Harper had troubles with going back himself. That and with the understanding of his own mind and soul any longer.

Yes, he definitely had become too attached.

No longer could he see the children he had helped to raise as his enemies now. No longer did they now wear the faces of the attackers of him or his family of his past in his dreams. Sometimes Harper just sat under the big oak tree in the huge garden of their residence and tried to sort his confused mind out and his confused feelings too, he never fully made it though.

Often instead he now wondered what his cousin would think of him if he would ever have known.

Harper wasn't certain that he really wanted to know that but somehow he was convinced that Brendan would have understood him better as Seamus did understand himself lately. His cousin was always the better one of them both in the matters of the heart and soul in the past. Soul-searching wasn't exactly Harpers forte nor in the past or in the now and most likely it never would be.

Staring at the sky overhead, Seamus Zelazny Harper tried to find out who he was now and wondered silently what his friends where doing in the future now. Despise what he had thought in the past, he did miss them, even Hunt. Often when Drago couldn't sleep in the past, Harper had told him stories about Harper's many adventures on the starship Andromeda or about his mother, Beka.

The latter had often left him with stinging eyes.

He missed the Maru and the others…especially Tyr came often to Harper's mind. Funny, how much he had been hurt when the other betrayed them all and yet, he did miss the dark and brooding Nitsch more than the most others. Harper often wondered if that had to do with his unresolved crush on the Kodiak. Somehow he was certain that it was so, he had never dared to act on that attraction, and he loved his life too much. Thank you very much! Besides the pesky little fact that Tyr would have never acted upon any kind of love declaration of Harper anyways. The Kodiak was too much a lady's man, Harper had figured out a long time ago. Too driven to re made his Pride, still Seamus missed to have him around, especially here.

Meanwhile Harper had his identity crisis, Drago warred with his genetically father more and more often in public. The two tried to establish their power over the other. For Harper it was only a matter of time before one would make a move to get rid of the other. And knowing history he tried to soothe Drago enough to not let him make a wrong move or Paul get the better out of Drago. The latter was more the catalyst of his worries in the late. As wise Drago could be if he wanted or needed it to be; he still was partly only a teenager in some ways and prone to an explosive temper at times. A teenager that was dangerous when irritated too much.

From history, Harper knew, Paul would die on a arsenic poisoning in the near future…he just never found out how the genetic engineer had come in contact with the arsenic poison in the first place and the last did bit of information make Harper uneasy to say at last.

He knew Drago well enough to know too that the young man would do what was necessary to get rid of an enemy or what he considered as a treat to himself and his people. He ruthlessly had proven that already ways too often in the past two years. Harper had finally found out after searching for years, what person exactly had killed the most of the reminding humans. Paul had done that to ensure that his*children's* gen-pool kept clean from straying human DNA. He was so deeply gone into his madness in the late that Harper had no doubt on his findings to be true.

Trust it to that madcap to pull such a stunt!

What had greatly disturbed Seamus though was the little pesky fact that Drago had also killed a number of people under the pretense that the unknown assailant had done it. To get rid of any resistance against his rule or his regime for good, it disturbed Harper big time when he found that out. The young leader had become a dangerous man with the time one that did not tolerate any kind of competing him.

Only Harper could lately talk him out of something again.

Not even the already two wife's Drago had taken managed that. Politically spoken, Drago had become a great leader. He took care of the growing number of his people in any way possible. Went great lengths to ensure their further prospering for times to come and laid down the laws and principles for future generations in record time. Often consulting with the only person he did trust fully, Harper.

Wryly the human realized slowly that he had been a seemingly needed someone to build the very race that later would destroy his home planet in the future. The irony wasn't lost on him. He often now wondered what Tyr would have thought of all of this and sometimes Drago found him laughing suddenly his ass off out of the blue because of those thoughts. But try as might; he couldn't get Harper to tell him what exactly was so funny in the first place!

It ended mostly with Drago watching him bemused doing so, none the wiser but happy that Harper seemingly was joyful and not brooding for once.

Sometimes the two conversed over the universe and Harper's past in general. And on rare times Harper told Drago about the two Nietzschian warriors he had met in his timeline, especially Tyr. At one of those rare occasions Drago had directly asked him on Tyr and harpers attraction to said Kodiak Alpha. Burning brightly with embarrassment Harper had told him to keep his trap closed and out of his business what made his charge just grin at him in the end and tease him mercilessly afterwards. Often the young Nietzschean leader went uncharacteristically silent after their conversations, sometimes even bordering on sad. Harper never could clearly make out why; he figured it had to do with Drago's musings about the future in general. Now, years later, his former charge understood why it was better to leave the future as it was. Otherwise, he once told Harper in a quiet moment, Seamus would have never come here maybe.

When he begun to subtly hint out good matches to Harper, Seamus went in hiding for nearly a month before Drago got the message that he didn't want a relationship with someone else as the one he pinned for secretly for years now. It was embarrassing enough to have Drago try to couple him off Harper found and in the end the young man left it be.

Seamus Zelazny Harper often wondered for how long his happiness would last. Knowing much too well how much the universe loved it to screw around with his life. This time of relatively happiness for Harper was already taking ways too long. Harper didn't trust it and idly asked himself when the Universe would come around and collect its dues from him. Until then he decided to take what he could get and live it to the fullest. Still, he wondered increasingly often; when would the wakeup call for him come?

He just hoped that the universe would have enough mercy to kill him this time.

Harper did not think he would survive the loss of his third rag tag family as undamaged like the other ones this time.

Of course he wasn't prepared when the hit finally came.

He never had been before in the past, so why should he have been it this time? Harper idly told himself before the sight of Drago's shocked face vanished in a swirl of colors of the machine that brought him back to his timeline against his will.

Paul had finally made his move and lost. He had underestimated his son too much and had to pay for it with everything he had gained in the past years. His try to take the ruler ship from his son ended into more deaths as necessary and Drago tightly secured in place. It had a good side effect though. The Nietzschean race became finally just that; one combined race. United under one ruler; Drago Musaveni. And said leader wasn't too keen to have his genetically father around for much longer as necessary. He promptly removed him from all of his positions and from his near presence too. Paul was cussing the entire way he was dragged out. He cursed Beka and her genes, which he made responsible for Drago's stubbornness and refuse to listen to him in the past and Harper, for having stolen his son from him. Needless to say, that no one really listened to his lunatic ravings in the end.

For Paul the unsuccessful try ended in a permanent conferment to the old orbital station for the rest of his existence under the guard of four trusted warriors of Drago.

There he took up his now constantly fruitless genetic studies again. No longer did anyone listen to him now, nor would do so in the future. His health began also to become unstable, with the following months. Harper began to feel wary more and more often. One day he decided to check on the now old man, not that he liked him much to begin with it but his old fears where back and the paranoia that had often protected him in the past reared its ugly head in his mind. The original machine was still on the station. What if Paul had found it? What if he used it to go back in time again to get things right? Suddenly Harper wanted nothing more as to destroy it himself, even if that meant that he was stuck here for good.

He was absolved from asking the now nearly twenty year's old ruler of the Nietzschian people to visit Paul, by his timely deathbed and Paul's sudden want to tell Harper something.

Not even Drago denied him that last words…this turned out to be the biggest error that Drago had ever made in his life.

No one of them all had known that Paul had indeed found the machine and stored it in his sleeping room in secret. Nor had one of them all known that he had found the error in the machinery and solved it in his reminding halfway sane hours to remove the one obstacle of his perfect life out of it again.

Harper.

The very one person he made responsible for his child's mulish behavior. In his mad mind he really believed that Harper was an obstacle for the growing of the young Nietzschean race and so Paul spend every ounce of his reminding strength to remove the engineer from his timeline for good. Sadly for Harper and Drago, he was effective to a fault. So, when he suddenly activated the cursed thing he gave Harper no time to react and so for one time only, Paul succeeded in their long ongoing feud.

Harper found himself back, in his old Lab in front of a stunned Beka Valentine who promptly hugged him nearly to dead.

And Drago Musaveni, he found himself back alone in a room with a dead grinning man. Staring with a thunderous face at the place where Harper had last stood. Well knowing that Seamus was safety back into his own timeline. A timeline he could never hope to reach. When the face of their leader suddenly changed from murderous to sly, his guards knew that Drago was up to something big but wisely they held their traps shut.

And what, Drago thought, what if I find a way to outsmart dead?

**Leave me nice comment if you liked it^^ **

**Suryallee**


	2. Learn to dance to the music

Title: Homefires

Author: Suryallee

Pairing: Harper/Tyr

Rating: PG13 to NC-17 The latter will only be posted fully out written on AFFN and adult sides.

Spoilers: many

Archive: if someone wants to, sure^^

Feedback: makes my day, honestly!

Website: none

Disclaimer: All characters belong to Tribune Entertainment. No copyright infringement or use intended. I merely wrote this for me and my reader's entertainment only.

Warnings: This story contains cussing and stuff and slash, so if this disturbs you, don't read on.

Notes: see under this part and read them!

Beta: none so far but wanted.

**Thank you for the reviews that I got! I honestly did not think I would get even one and I got three on different sides^^ I am glad someone else is still loving this fandom as much as I do! Dances happily around and waves, Hija people! And some even put it on their story alerts, I am very happy, thank you^^ **

**Sury **

**Chapter Two; Learn to dance to the music of a time long gone.**

…**what will happen when the future meets the distant past to talk about the present? **

**The devils four riders, the plagues of mankind will ride once more.**

**And they will unmask the liars, the thief's and the treacherous, to dance upon their graves!**

**To make the world a better place? **

**Part taken out of full gravestone inscription, around 1350, Germany, Europe. **

Beka folded the blankets carefully around the well known frame of the very man she had once called her engineer and best friend. Then she simply plopped down onto the chair next to the bunk in that she had put Harper into to get some rest. He looked so small now, so vulnerable and so freaking different! Had he grown out his hair? At the nape of his neck, he had begun to let it grow as it looked and braided it to keep it out of his face and work she concluded. It suited him, Beka thought.

He Had Raised Her Son!

Beka's freaking son!

Harper, of all people possible, had raised the child Paul Musaveni had used her stolen DNA for to create it…Beka couldn't believe it!

She sighed and rubbed her face in a weary gesture. This was simply too alien to take in all at once. No wonder was it now any longer to Beka that the Vedran Empire and their allies were so out to find him. Not to her. Staring up at the ceiling of the Maru, Beka Valentine connected the dots in her mind and the picture she finally got wasn't appealing to the woman at all!

It told a very ugly story in the end.

Harper was used from the beginning on. In a way she did not like at all, nope, not at all! Her fist met the wall beside her with an unholy force. The only questions she had now left were; why? And for what exactly? What was the purpose of this entire plot? The only answers to that questions that Beka could come up with was that someone had needed a fool to play with and found out too late that said fool had not only a mind of his own but also the clever intellect of a genius to do his own thing in the very end. Harper had his morals, she did know that best.

Someone had tried to use his hurt about losing his family and friends and his planet, all the resulting hate out of it, to kill the very single person that had spawned the Nietzschean race.

But…wouldn't that have changed the future too?

Beka groaned again. Whoever had been that *brilliant a plotter* had first off, not counted on Harper's devotion to her, Beka and secondly been a complete dimwit in her opinion. What she simply did not get was what the other had had in his or her mind what would have happened if Harper had done it. This was ridiculous!

For all she know the Abyss could have succeeded!

Her son…the child she would never meet…Harper had…

Snarling Beka shook her head hard to focus on the present problems again.

Biting around on her nails the blond haired woman tried to figure out what she could do now, what she should do. It wasn't that easy as one might think, too many possibilities had to be considered. Too many of what ifs to take in caution. To turn Harper over to the authorities wasn't any option at all. She had a hunch what they would do. Practically trap him in a lab for the rest of his life, under constant supervision and never to let him out again.

Beka slowly suspected that they feared his mastermind in a way that even she couldn't fathom.

To judge from what she had heard in the last hours since she had found his hidden Lab on the old orbital station out of Dylan's times and after he had suddenly appeared out of the blue, Beka was certain that certain people had a good reason to do so. Harper was dangerous in his own right. Much more as even Beka had given him credit before.

He had vanished from the face of the known universe for nearly a Year!

Beka had been worried sick over the wellbeing of her vanished friend and much confused when everybody suddenly wanted to *talk* to Harper out of the blue. No one had given a shit about him in the year before, after the fall of the Abyss. All had been too busy to pamper their precious Dylan; no one had cared a shit about Harper. Even she got lost in the ringing bells for a while, what Beka now regretted deeply. So it had baffled her deeply when all suddenly wanted him and no one knew where he had vanished to. Growing suspicious, she had taken the Maru and gone in all secrecy to check on every single hideout she knew of Harper ever have mentioned in the past. Praise Harper's paranoid mind and his equally obsessed believe that the entire universe was out to get him! He had chosen the last place to use that anyone else beside her would have even thought him to use.

What to do now?

Dylan? No option. She was certain that he would want to do the *right* thing and turn him over into the *care* of his allies as soon as he saw Harper. Only for his own good, of course! Beka snorted and hit her head backwards against the solid wall of the Maru with a low curse.

Trance? She suppressed another snort. Same case as Dylan and if her feeling was right, even a worse fate for her friend. She had grown distant to the now Golden Trance Gemini who had turned out to be the Avatar of Tarn Vedra's sun. often Beka wondered if Harper had been right when he once told her that they all had put too much trust into the changed being that had come through the from the Tesseract Machine created rift in the times and universes. He had never fully trusted her as much again as he had trusted his purple pixie. Harper had mourned her deeply, Beka knew.

Had he been right?

Had that golden replacement maybe really manipulated them all more as she had originally thought? To Beka it often looked like it now, since she wasn't in Trance near presence anymore and had time to think things over in time by herself. Her first uncertainties had grown on Sefra actually and never had gone away again ever since.

There was always the benefit of doubt.

Racking her hands through her hair, Beka stood and checked one last time on Harper to then go to the pilot seat to slipstream out of the sector. Better to bring as much distance between and the others as possible for now. She didn't take risks, never had done so in the past and wouldn't do in the future.

She would not talk to them all again before this all was sorted out!

Grinning furiously now what was bordering on maniac in some ways, the woman took off to fly a series of diverted routes to confuse possible trackers for a longer while. She had to keep a friend out of trouble as he had her for uncountable times before without to ever ask for a favor in return. And from the looks of it, she maybe knew the very person who would help them to solve this puzzle out.

Willingly or not, he owned it to Harper as much as she did!

On a planet far away from her position a tall figure gently forced a dove to fly from an elegant hand with a flick of the delicate but none the less very masculine wrist with a soft shove.

"I take it then that no one has gotten a hold onto him so far?"

The surprisingly deep smooth voice addressed an equally tall, if not taller man behind him who had the build of a warrior and dark skin. It contrasted sharply but not unpleasantly so with the light tanned one of the speaker. The addressed man behind him gave a short shake. It seems to be all that the speaker from before did need to confirm his suspicions. A sigh escaped the blond man and the sound of bone blades snapping out to the full length for a moment in expressing silent anger was all that disturbed the silence in the little garden.

"Crap!" The man sighed again before he crossed his arms in front of a well toned chest, clad in real silks of black and silver colors and then he turned to look out at the river below the garden in the distance in silent contemplation. For minutes no one spoke then the first man turned around to the silent sentinel behind him to look directly into the dark eyes of the man.

"I want him found and secured, fast! Before the fools of the new Commonwealth begin to suspect even more as they already do. Get him and her too if possible and bring them to the place we confirmed upon at any cost, unharmed and in one piece. Take whoever you deem needed to accomplish these tasks and tell your goons to be careful. I will not tolerate any kind of stupidity coming from them. And make certain to not let them on the plot by accident! That would be disastrous to all the work we have done so far. I do not have to spell it out to you, of all people, what is on stage here, do I?"

Again the dark man behind the first simply shook his head.

Behind him another man, not as tall as the dark skinned one but still of impressive stature and taller then the first almost silently walked over to the first two. He displayed a silent and deadly grace that was lost on many others in the present time. His skin was olive tanned and the hair nearly fully black. It kissed the skin of his broad shoulders while he walked or more glided over. He had the movements of a predator, controlled, soundless and graceful.

Coming to a stop in a respectful distance to the first person, the newcomer bowed in a military fashion and then straightened to full height, hands clasped behind his back. A grin on the handsome face told the other two all they needed to know.

"Oh, splendid! I take it that you have good news for me then?"

The dark haired male nodded once.

"Yes. We found the station he used and the rest of the machine. It was fully destroyed by the time we got there. Someone took lengths to blast it into stardust before anyone arrived. For the reports, I believe it was Captain Valentine. The reads of the scans that we made of the areal point all in into the same direction, Sir. We found also traces of the presence of the Maru lasers in the scans. I conclude that she found him before us and took him away and destroyed the evidence to confuse possible hunters of them both.

Since she hasn't appeared anywhere near the new Commonwealth in the last hours I take it that she is smarter as we have first thought even and has concluded some of the facts together by herself, at least enough to hide from everyone else with him."

Both of the other males now traded an amused grin openly with each other.

"That's Beka Valentine for you. I told you how knowledgeable she is beforehand." The dark skinned man spoke calmly with a sensually dark voice and the fair newcomer nodded. "True. And your warnings fell not on death ears, I assure you." The black haired man replied in an equally calm tone of voice.

The blond haired man walked over to the two others and addressed the last arrived one of them.

"Any clues to where she could have vanished to?"

With a shake of the head the addressed man confirmed his lack of knowledge of the asked to the others openly. "None, Sir. She masked her way out with taking several different routes after the other and so confused even our tracking programs and AI's. May I mention that said AI's are highly impressed by her skills?"

The first man laughed loudly at the snarky comment.

As did the other one, both traded an amused grin in silent understanding. The last arrived man did not know her as well as the two others did. "You may. I am not overly surprised though, she always was a more than worthy adversary to deal with. Even before knowing her to be the Alpha Matriarch of our race. That's one of her greatest charms. " He winked at the newcomer.

Then he turned to the mansion behind them all and begun to walk up to the open terrace doors in a leisurely manner. He also showed the grace of a dangerous creature on him and despising him to be blond haired, he reminded the other two on a big cat when he gave up any pretense and just was being himself. As he was currently doing it right this moment right in front of both other males. Both other Alpha's knew very well that this was displayed uncommon trust in their species etiquette and meant that he respected them and didn't comment on it.

They simply followed his lead and took it in stride.

"How amusing! From all people possible, she was the last one who I thought of would go after Harper. Then again," He turned shortly to fix the gazes of the others for a moment with his sharp thoughtful eyes. "she was always thinking first on herself then of her family and closest friends and then, after a long distance, of all the others. It should have not surprised me so much, I think. After all, Paul Museveni chose her out of this point, among of many fortunate others."

When he came to a stop in the doors wide open space he turned again and walked into the house. His voice floated behind him when he vanished with a final nod at the two from the sight of the duo of high Alpha behind him into the darkness of the room behind the doors.

"You have your different orders, act upon them with all dealings necessary to ensure a success and bring this to an end. He is getting impatient. A failure is not an option! And tell the, luckily for us and him now former Drago-Kazov Alpha, that I need his immeasurable expertise on the matters of the Vedran Empress and her hoodlums, if you would be so kind. She is getting surprisingly annoying of the late and I hate it to not being taken seriously!"

The two dangerous men behind him just sniggered at his last words before both turned into different directions to fulfill their given orders.

Sitting on the shaded terrace of the shop on this nameless drift, Beka had brought him to; Harper contemplated his life in silence over a hot glass cup coffee.

He so hated to be proven right.

No matter, though, Harper understood perfectly well that he shouldn't have gotten that attached in the first place. And to judge from what Beka had told him of what had happened meanwhile he was in the distant past, there was much more going on here as he would have ever believed.

She was sure someone had tried to use him.

But why him? Ok, so he hated the Nitsch's with a, strength bordering on self-destruction if needed to pay back certain ones for deeds in the past. That doesn't mean that he would ever take out his angers on a helpless child! And Beka's one at that to top it all, if that was even possible. For what did these unknown people take him for?

A completely mentally and morally unhinged madcap?

He maybe was foolish often and in many ways but even he had some standards and curse it if he would fall that low just to please some certain perverts who thought it would be funny to toss him around some more to later use him to do their dirty work for them! So what if he had made his peace with Drago a long time before he had met him? It had not done any harm to anyone in the end and Harper had done it because he found out that he had been Beka's child.

His seize on the hot glass filled to the brim with the dark liquid took on force until the knuckles stood out white under the skin. It broke with a sudden ugly sound under the force used and buried some of the shards deeply into his right hand.

Hissing sharply, Harper fast let go on the remains to then pick methodically the shards out of his hurt hand without to give a damn of the shocked looks of the onlookers. The waitress hurried over to give him bandage material and a towel, thinking it had been the responsibility of the glass pot that had burst because of the too hot liquid and not Harper, clutching it until it gave under the pressure.

Next to him sat a concerned Beka and tried to lighten the mood, unsuccessfully, of course.

She had tried it already since hours on end and nothing seems to work enough to shake Seamus out of his sad stubborn mood again. No matter how hard she tried. Not that Beka had thought it to be any different, she had known he would react like that beforehand and so, wasn't all too badly taking it. It was a wonder in itself that her friend had not already tried to take his own life so far. She wouldn't question her good luck as long as it lasted.

Calmly she watched the changed man next to her patch himself up. No help was offered or wanted; she understood that without to spell it out.

He…had…changed.

Different from before. Calmer in many ways now if that was the right word, deadlier in many routines and uncharacteristically quiet. Even Beka couldn't fathom any longer what was sometimes running through the mastermind of Harper. He was almost an alien for most of the time. Not to her, oh no, but to the entire outside world.

He had, almost, become like a Nietzschean in many ways and reactions and this little observation disturbed Beka a little more as normal.

Oh, Harper had explained her how that came to be and she understood, again. Still, the display of him breaking the pot and not giving out a shout of pain was highly alarming her in so many ways. He was collecting evidence. She had seen such reactions of her friend in the past. Only difference to then, now he was wordlessly doing so and more thorough in his taken means to an end.

Harper had become an unknown participant in these games of hidden intentions around them both. One that was highly terrifying and devious. That would not back down as Harper would have done in the past and who was not showing any open weakness to his enemies to any further extent. Instead, he now played them all masterfully and that to an excess that astounded Beka.

Only Beka, her he still showed the original Harper, his true self as she silently called it. Only to her he was still the open and friendly man she had known. She figured that was because he still trusted her fully with his secrets and she was feeling privileged about that. All others now only saw an extremely cunning man without to realize it that never showed any of his schemes on his new poker faced identity, that he was showing them. Who played the fool to such lengths that his unfortunate opponents all saw too late behind the carefully crafted mask of him.

If ever.

The last two weeks had been…eventful to say at last.

He had not taken long to recover to some extent, had only needed a few days to think her told stories over and then had suddenly reacted. Their first stop had been at a drift that was known to have a lot of Nightsider's onto it. He had grilled them all, well all that mattered and Beka was surprised of the findings both made there.

For a while Beka was concerned about his too open behavior around them. That was until she got it on the second day there that he was screwing them over with showing them a false persona. After that, Beka had stood back and simply watched her friend outmaneuver one after the other.

Shocked to the core from what she saw and amused to no end at the same time.

He had gone here to buy his equipment before he had built the machine. Now, after nearly a full standard year he had found out that someone unknown to the rat faces had left it with them in a much too easy raid, to be later found by him to use it.

They had been played too, and Beka made no hide out of it to the Nightsider's who in turn where suddenly uncommonly helpful and told them much more details. In the end they knew the following.

Someone else had taken lengths to let high class mechanical gear fall into their hands to be found from Harper later.

Same someone had pointed it out to Harper by using third parties of his old contacts that he could finds here what he needed.

And last but not least; there were more parties involved as both of them had originally thought!

The last bit was a surprise to Beka and Seamus. That unknown party had tried to find out their whereabouts too and even went so far to leave a message for them both with one of the rats to deliver it to them if they ever showed up here again.

Both had faster as lightning deserted the drift and two days done nothing else to constantly jump from one drive into the other. In the end all of their pursuers had given up.

For now.

The message had been written on plain old paper, much to Beka's and Harper's astonishment. And folded neatly and lain inside of an old fashioned envelope. Said Nightsider had not dared to open it. He had told both that he did valuable his life too much for taking such a risk.

That new party was of Nietzschean origin.

What made them both now contemplate to go to the only person Beka had thought of to be halfway safe, Telemachus Rhade on Tarazed. Now both debated on the fact that he was, after all and foremost, still a Nietzschianer in the end and how he was maybe involved into this all.

It gave all many new dimensions to consider, as Harper put it, to judge carefully.

Why in the unknown name of the Divine did the Nitsch suddenly hold an interest on them both?

From what Beka could tell Harper, they had in surprisingly short time rebuilt their former empire to new lengths even. It was bigger as before the High Guard times and took a span that made the new Commonwealth look small and insignificant in comparing the two. Not only that, they had also been united under one single leader from what she knew and that alone left only one answer now come to Harper's mind; they must have found the born genetically copy of Drago to do such a feat or have found an equally high ranking person to use.

And if he was not mistaken, the only being he could figure out to be the copy was a by now, maybe ten years old boy or even younger and not the in different cycles mentioned grown adult that was their new leader.

Thus that, Tyr's son was dark skinned like his father and not fair as the new leader seems to be as described from various sources of Beka. Nor was Tamerlane a Blond. Harper and Beka too had fast figured out that Tyr's son had still lived, despise everything he had told them all in the past. It had been Harper who had secretly checked on Tyr's mail, so to speak and on the various rumors flying around in the rest of the universe, to then figure it out in the end.

The last of his clues had been the Genites and their try to kill Orca pride to kill one single child.

It had been easy to figure out for his crafty mind in the end. Although he had never told a soul, Harper had secretly checked on the kid as long as he could after Tyr's demise. Not even the sly Olma had been able to figure out their unknown benefactor who had hid cleverly from all of her tries to de-mask him.

Harper had taken care of that.

The last time he had checked on her and the boy and Olma both had mysteriously vanished out of the universe. He flexed his fingers in a try and hissed softly again at the pains that shoot up his arm.

"I will give you a shoot of Nanobots when we go back. One of the modified ones that you stored in the med centre in the Maru." He gave a nod at Beka's words, not bothering to look up, still inspecting his hurt hand. One of his first actions had been to recalibrate the Nano's on board of the Maru. The effectiveness with that they now worked had Beka stunned for hours to no end.

He even went so far to give her a shoot and himself too, to ensure that they were both as healthy as they could be. The little helpers had done an astonishing work and that; fast. They didn't last in the human system but until they had expired they had worked out a many a health problem of Beka. Now even her hair Nano's worked better as before!

Chuckling quietly to herself the woman did move up when Harper did and left the shop before the artificial Nightfall on the station fell fully.

It was time to sort their allies out.

In another corner of the universe, Dylan Hunt, Captain of the starship Andromeda stared unbelievingly up into a face he had never believed to ever see again. Well, not in this form but still it was the same.

"It can't be! It simply can't!"

Never less, it could and the owner of said face and his crocked grin was the last thing Dylan saw before he abruptly lost his conscious mind and fell. Only to be caught in the nick of time before he could hit the floor.

Caught from an arm with characteristically Bone Spurs, laying flat against the bracer of the owner of the same ones.

His rescuer and assailant grinned and chuckled at Dylan's not so typically reaction to see him before he secured the force lance on his belt, that he was holding with the other hand. A frozen Andromeda could only watch him hoist up her Captain on both arms and carry Dylan over to an abandoned seat on the command deck.

Her Avatar was out, courtesy of the Nietzschean's on board who had come seemingly out of the nowhere and had fried her internal programs with an unknown virus for a few minutes to board her hull. Doyle too was out like a light, he had taken care of the androids himself, and the core AI had been reduced to watch that fights. All in all it had been a strategically brilliant maneuver; she had to give the Nietzschean's that much. Still, it brought her and her crew in lethal danger now.

She, like her Captain had, wondered too how this could be!

It was impossible and yet seemingly appeared to be the true. Still frozen, the core AI of the Andromeda watched the Nietzschianer that puzzled her so much set Dylan down on the chair almost gently. She remembered other occasions this particular one had acted with the same astounding tenderness in the past.

She wished Harper had been here and not for the first time actually, in the past months she and her other self's had often wished him to be back. He at least had kept her in top order and function unlike the incapable fools that the new Commonwealth had supplied as his replacements.

And now look what good it had brought them all to let the new order decide about such important matters!

The Nietzschianer had taken extreme care to not damage any of them all more as absolutely necessary, what surprised her, why? One would think he would do more damage, as it looked he did not want her to be damaged nor her crew or Dylan. He had even scolded one of the others when he had been too rough and had seriously injured one of the new lancers who had valiantly fought back. Said lancer was currently in med deck and taken care of, from the assailants of all people! What was going on here!

Suddenly she lost her coherent mind and feared already erasing when the voice of the Nietzschian male told her in an almost soothing voice that he would only put her to sleep for a while.

The dark haired man smirked at the now blank screen before it came to life again, only this time with the blank face of Andromeda's AI. Her originally AI was sleeping, this was only a rudimentary version, created from the temporally virus in her core to do his biddings for now. Later, her core and her other self's would not remember these events and the temporally version would erase itself without any loopholes.

"Andromeda, take route to the programmed coordinates and that asap!"

The temporally version nodded and did what she was told without any emotion shown on her face or to speak. She didn't need to. The man in the meanwhile made place to a pilot who took place in the seats to fly the ship to the assigned coordinates with the help of the temporally AI.

Not a word was spoken; all of his men knew their assigned roles in this little plan.

Taking up the lifeless seeming form of Dylan the man begun to leave command deck, whistling the crowning melody of the Vedran Empresses all the way out. When he reached Dylan's quarters he placed the sleeping man carefully on his bed before he opened a link to the blond haired man from weeks before.

"Mission accomplished, Dylan Hunt under guard. No one was lost; one thought got a bit roughened up from one of my men. He showed a surprising resistance and skill I comment him for change. That fool who did the damage was dealt with; the Lancer is in med deck and will recover. I will bring Dylan now to the agreed coordinates and give him over to our impatient one. Then I will leave the ship in the hands of our engineers to modify the programs to join them."

He stopped for a second to turn a serious look at his conversation partner on the screen.

"She will not like us taking advantage like this of her or her crew, and I fear Mister Harper will want to kill us when he finds out, Sir." On the other end of the communication, the blond raised a brow then he nodded. He knew as much.

"It has to be done. Sadly. If we want to get rid of their pesky little spy programs that those fools have installed all over the time inside her Core AI and elsewhere, she will have to endure and to accept our help, even if it maddens her. And as much as I know it better as to invoke the wrath of a female, and if it is only that of a programmed one, we have no other choice." He grimaced.

His talking partner nodded at the words.

"Good work, though! One task done, the other is still evading as usual. He has many troubles to catch the two, but that was to be expected from the beginning on." Both men shared a look of that clearly said, ouch!

"The two are still on the run?"

The other nodded. "The Nightsider gave them the message that we want to talk to them, even to their conditions but nothing has come back so far." The blond hit the table in front of him with a fist. "She and he are collecting data as it looks, just as we expected them but far faster as we gave them ever a credit for, and no one of the two is acting like usual… it has become a game of cat and mouse. With us as the mouse, lately, and the two as the cats in that respect." He grinned in wry humor and the darker of the two mirrored that look.

Getting serious the blond addressed the dark part of their conversation once more before he blinked out.

Get rid of what isn't of any use for us and bring the rest to the given coordinates, we will meet there…oh and one thing more; He is very pleased."

Stopping the recording and then turning around, the man watched Dylan sleep for some seconds before he checked again on all else on the ship. Giving out some orders he simply called it a night and settled after some moments down directly next to the out of all Dylan.

A very content smile on the full lips the eyes closed and he fell into a very light sleep, lulled there by the missed scent of Dylan.

When Beka and Harper found out two days later that the Andromeda seemingly had vanished, both were shocked.

Nothing was pointing into a safe direction of what possibly could have happened to Dylan and his crew until a week later a liner starship found survivors of a seemingly crash on an abandoned orbital station over a gas giant by what seem to be an accident. The former crew members of the missing Andromeda told everyone who asked that they couldn't remember anything else as that Dylan suddenly had ordered them all off ship.

Rumors were that the ship had a run into something in space that had destroyed her.

None of the two in the hidden Maru believed that version for one second only. The sensors of Rommi were far too superior to let such a fate happen, both were sure that someone had stolen the Andromeda right from under the nose of the new commonwealth and Dylan too but to what purpose was eluding them. The question was who the culprit was.

Meanwhile Harper furiously started to search after Dylan and the missing warship, Beka checked on Telemachus Rhade and found him gone from Tarazed since a half year already. Not even his family was any longer there, the entire Majorum Pride had left and was last seen in the area that now the united prides controlled. They even got an entire planet for their own use from what she could find out. Cussing, she scarcely avoided it to get caught from the home guard before she could leave her informant on Tarazed again.

She had snuck in with a stolen ID and Slip-fighter and barely made it off planet in the end.

What was the most startling to her and Harper was the latest news of the Prides letting slave worlds go if they wanted. They even offered those who wanted to stay a place in their hierarchy, low of course they were still Nitsch in all respects but a secured one none the less and a free one. Many of the former worlds took that offer and did not defect to the new commonwealth as one would have thought.

Harper could only mourn the fact that this turn of events came much too late for the Earth.

The message in the envelope had entailed the wish of the Pride's leader to meet him and Beka. He even told them to free chose a place if wanted and written in an unknown neat script from an unknown person. The two didn't take it. To big was the risk of a trap in their opinion but still, it was a confusing development. Both couldn't shake the feeling of that something bigger as them was going on here.

What was so important on one engineer and one Captain of an insignificant trader ship like the Maru to have the interest of such a person?

Well if you didn't count in Beka being the Alpha Matriarch of their race, that is. Somehow both of them doubted it big time that that was the point here. No, it had to be something else and Harper as Beka tried their hardest to figure out what.

Meanwhile Beka was on her way back; Harper sat in their current hideout and mused over all the data he had found.

They had hidden the Maru from detection on the same old and now empty space station where Dylan, Beka, Tyr, Trance, Harper and Rev one day had found the child warriors in. the same ones that had fought against the Magog all the time as well as the raiding Nietzschean parties. The commonwealth had come and gotten them after it was established. Now no one lived here anymore, only the ghosts of times past.

The entire part of the universe was fully abandoned now, since the Magog had destroyed everything in here what was worthy or useful and it had become a no man's land. For Beka and Harper it was the ideal place to hide and sit the current dilemmas of everyone else out. Meanwhile they watched the others make fools out of themselves idly and contemplated on the meaning of this entire madness around them both.

The old station had been a lucky hit.

When he searched the old files of communications stored in the destroyed AI Harper found some real goodies. An entire library of conversations that the station accidentally had overheard and stored and under the many of thousands of messages of ages past, Harper stumbled over one of the last Vedran Empress shortly before her murder.

His interest piped he had played it on the screen he used and listened to the haughty monarch, long gone, he got the surprise of his life!

From what he could puzzle together later he suddenly became a good picture of what exactly had happened three hundred years in the past. He could also draw parallels to his own situation in the present. The problem was, he refused to believe it! It was simply too much to take in and besides that, it meant that someone dear to him and his friends had betrayed them all in many more ways than one. It even gave a hellish crazy explanation to the why!

Cradling his head in his hands Harper took some deep frantic heaves of air to calm him before he checked over his finds again, for the tenth time.

When Beka got back, a surprise awaited the tired pilot. Harper was drunk as a sailor and currently danced with a stuffed teddy bear he had found abandoned on the station deeply in an almost comically looking embrace of some sorts to a sad music she knew he had loved to hear on Earth. Arching a brow she went over to him and looked at the hilarious picture for a few minutes before she decided to ask. Against her better judgment.

"Care to tell me what is the meaning of this impromptu party, Harper? And where did you find this bear? He dances well."

Said man turned to her and flunks himself into her arms. Only now it occurred to Beka that he was crying…had he finally snapped under all that pressure? There in her hold he babbled out everything he had found out. Beka blanched rapidly, when she connected his ramblings together in her mind to the final picture.

Then she cursed violently!

As it looked, the last Empress had only been one of many before in her line of duty to think the same. Until then, the Magog had only been a minor treat to the entire known universe.

The Vedran's had always prided themselves with the fact to be the oldest race in the universe and so had always seen themselves as the most important compared to every other one. And they had gone many lengths to ensure their superiority over the millennia.

When Earth was reluctantly welcomed in the empire humanity had been no treat to them at first.

That changed when they saw how successful the Homo sapiens and later the Nietzschean, their sub race grew, compared to them. The human races needed less of time to reach certain goals and grew steadily in numbers, the Vedraner grew jealous with the time but hid it in the attempt to do something against that later, when no one expected it.

It was such a petty concept to think about that it eluded any rational explanation. Since the Vedran Race had always been praised in the past to be the best of all races in the known universe. The last empress had taken to treachery to ensure that the commonwealth and the Nietzschian Empire had gone on each other's troths'. That had happened before she was killed.

It had always wondered Harper from where in the hell the Abyss had the coordinates for their needed slipstream attack on the worlds in the past. It had so suddenly changed the route of the world ship that no one had expected them to be there at that time. That in turn had lead to the destruction of worlds like Schopenhauer's world and others with the entire population of Nietzschian people dead. Killed by the Magog who after that had become the treat they had been in the end.

It had been agents of the Vedran who had given them out to it deliberately to ensure a rift between the two human races.

And so they had invited the dark avatar into the known universe with the full knowledge of what he was capable off, thinking they could control him in the end. Of course, they failed in the very end and closed the ways to reach them off, of the rest of the universe. Not that they had really cared at that point, still in believing that the Abyss would never reach them and take care of their problems for them.

What they had not counted on was the fact that the Abyss also endangered their own suns avatar. Trance had left them to find a way to remove the abyss and his minions from the universe once and for all.

But even she had played a two faced game.

Maybe her younger self had been honest to a point and really cared, her golden self had not. At least not that much enough to not use the crew of the Andromeda or everything she could to do her dirty work with luring them into wrong believes and false truths. When she had become once more one with her star, her influence had left the crew of the Andromeda slowly but surely and other powers had taken over again to use what they could to ensure their superiority.

Since his Earth had been destroyed, those powers behind the scenes had planned to use Harper for their goals.

Such as, killing Drago Museveni for them in the distant past, for example.

At least that was the conclusion that Beka made out of it.

However, they all had greatly underestimated him and his devotion and loyalty in the end and found out too late that nothing was running according to their plans. Now this party tried to do damage control and that included Harper in their hands or at least, killed if possible. He knew too much even not knowing anything at all. They had also underestimated his remaining true friend's reactions to his missing person and their mulish behavior in his respect. Honestly believing that they could buy them over with giving them their rightfully owned life's back or making them to important figures in the New Commonwealth. They had also not considered a third party to jump into the mix and mess their plans up royally. And said second party was the new Nietzschean Empire and their mysterious leader that no one could place.

In simpler words; all had run down the drain.

A cold shudder run over Beka's back only thinking of all of this.

Outside the station in a safe distance from the Maru's sensors away a ship came out of a slipstream tunnel and settled shortly after behind a moon.

The captain of said Nietzschean cruiser dismissed the pilot of the small and fast slip fighter that had leaded them here. It had taken him enough time to find the two and now that he had found them he did not risk anything to spoke them before he could seize them. Actually he had an accident to thank for. If she hadn't been in such a hurry to escape the Home Guard of Tarazed he would never have found her in such a short time. How ironic that he had to thank Telemachus for his luck, in a way, and Beka's curiosity of what he was doing. Said Marjoram pride alpha was currently staring down onto the screen with equally interest as he did it.

"Finally! I already began to believe that we would never get them."

The older of the two males nodded calmly.

"A testimony to that two's skills to hide and to survive. If we hadn't been lucky, she would have escaped again."

Telemachus nodded. That much was clear as the day on his new home world.

"Well then, let's get the two into safety, even they will not trust us first or believe it that we mean only good."

The darker and older one of both agreed and barked orders out. In a matter of seconds all were in a hurry to do what he told them.

**Until next time^^ Suryallee **


End file.
